The CLC has just finished working on a series of 4 lessons with year 7 geography pupils from Newfield School using Google Earth and other map software available for free on the internet. The pupils used the resources to find out more about their local area and different kinds of maps.

Here are some things the pupils said about their experience:

“I really enjoyed working with the CLC teacher, she helped me understand how to work Google Earth and how much fun it can be.”

“Google Earth is a great tool to find out about maps and how to find places.”

The pupils were asked to rate the lessons out of 10, and the average score came back as 8.4. Their teacher, Mrs Marsh, also enjoyed the lessons – she said: “The students were totally engaged in the project and all reported that they had learned something from each lesson. I have also learned how to use these packages and will not only be able to deliver the lessons to other classes in the future but share my experience with other colleagues.”

Here are my favourite new and old sites that can be used for modern languages lessons and revision:

1. http://lingro.com/ – open a foreign language (French, German, Italian, Polish, Spanish) website in Lingro – by pasting the address into the box, and you can click on any word on the page for a translation. It then stores any words you’ve looked at, and you can create games using your word list – at present this only includes Flashcards, but they promise more later on. And all for free! Particularly good for AS/A2 students undertaking research.

3. An old favourite http://www.quia.com/ – Click on ‘Try it Today’ to access hundreds of vocabulary and grammar revision exercises in all the main languages.

4. Another one that hasbeen around a while is http://www.spellmaster.com/ – this has games packs for revising vocabulary in a numberof languages. It also provides templates for you to create your own activities.